More foster kids finding homes with kin, thanks to shift in courts

When the last of her five children reached adulthood, Virginia Maldonado thought the days of diapers and formula were behind her. Then, her phone rang.

It was a caseworker from the Lehigh County Office of Children & Youth Services, telling her that her 19-year-old daughter, from whom she was estranged, had given birth to a baby boy and he was being placed in a foster home.

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Maldonado, 47, said she had some doubts when the caseworker suggested she take in the infant. But when she held little Julian in her arms, her hesitation disappeared.

"Once I saw that little angel, that was it," she said.

Maldonado, a Head Start school bus driver who lives in Allentown, later adopted Julian, now 12, and his sister Juliana, 11. Hers is one of a growing number of kinship arrangements that have been formalized by Pennsylvania's courts.

Kinship care, the practice of family members taking in relatives' children when parents are unable to care for them, has been around for ages. But it's only been in recent years that Pennsylvania joined a national trend, with courts pushing child welfare agencies to make finding kin a priority.

"I firmly believe that there's no question that kids are better served by staying with people they know," said Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer. "Kinship caregivers can have a tremendous impact on children's lives by offering them a place where they can feel safe."

Since 2012, kinship care has increased 24 percent in Pennsylvania, according to the state Office of Children & Families in the Courts. In 2014 — the most recent year for which figures are available — 19,200 children statewide were being supervised by the courts, with 37 percent in traditional foster care and 18 percent in kinship care. The rest remained with their parents with some court intervention.

Northampton County's Children, Youth and Families Division counted 86 children in kinship homes in-mid December, nearly one-third of the children in foster care in that county. In January, 95 children — about 36 percent of those in care — were in kinship homes, up from about 26 percent the previous year.

In Lehigh County, 57 children were placed in kinship homes between July 2014 and June 2015, according to Pam Buerhle, director of Lehigh County Office of Children & Youth Services. There were 47 children in kinship care the previous fiscal year, and 40 the year before that. The agency did not provide information about how many children are in the foster system.

Children come into the custody of county agencies for a variety of reasons, including a parent's incarceration, drug use, homelessness and allegations of abuse or neglect.

While most caregivers in kinship programs are relatives by blood or marriage, the courts have expanded the definition to include others who have a nurturing relationship with the child, such as coaches, teachers or family friends.

Caseworkers in Lehigh County cited one example of a coach taking in a child who was headed to foster care. Lisa Hand, who supervises Northampton County's kinship care program, said her office is working with two coaches and a teacher who have stepped up to become foster parents.

The state Supreme Court handed down rules requiring child welfare agencies to make finding family members a priority. The rules, updated in July, state that "diligent efforts" to locate kin must be made in every child's case.

For caseworkers, this quest for kin includes knocking on the doors of any family members they can find, as well as making phone calls, social media searches and computer database checks. Sometimes, the search widens to other states.

"It's a lot of legwork," said Krysta Heffner, a Lehigh County kinship supervisor. And it must be done quickly. By law, children whom authorities suspect are not safe with their parents must immediately be placed in foster care, with a court hearing on their case held within 72 hours.

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Another hearing occurs 10 days later, then another in 30 days. At each hearing, judges and juvenile court masters — specially trained attorneys authorized to make decisions regarding dependent children — must ask what efforts have been made to find family members.

Under pressure from the courts, caseworkers have learned to get creative when looking for kin.

When an angry parent tells workers that there's no one in the family who can take a child, the worker might ask to see the contact list on the parent's cellphone, Hand said. Or they ask whom the parent would call if they needed something in the middle of the night.

The cellphones and Facebook pages of older children also can provide clues, especially in cases when a mother says she has no way of getting in touch with a child's father, Hand said.

Some parents are more cooperative, Lehigh County caseworker Mary McGonigle said.

"They give us leads. Mom might tell us to call her sister, even if she hasn't talked to her sister for years," she said.

Family or not, kinship caregivers must still pass the same strict background checks, child abuse clearances and home inspections that other foster parents face. And they must be willing to complete a mountain of paperwork, undergo numerous interviews and have their lives scrutinized by child welfare agencies and the courts.

"It's a massive undertaking," McGonigle said.

Kinship caregivers are usually eligible for the same financial and medical assistance offered to traditional foster parents. The rate varies from family to family.

Though the agencies work to ease tensions created within families over kinship arrangements, such as hosting meetings with foster parents and extended family members where loved one are encouraged to come up with plans to solve the problems that led to the agency being involved, feelings still get bruised.

"I give kinship parents a lot of credit," Hand said. "We come to them, sometimes in the middle of the night, and ask them to rearrange their entire lives."

Research shows that children in kinship care fare better than those in traditional foster homes. Only 6 percent of kids in kinship care try to run away, compared with 16 percent in traditional foster homes and 35 percent in group homes, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy, a Washington, D.C anti-poverty advocacy agency.

About 63 percent of children in kinship care have to change schools, compared with 80 percent in regular foster homes and 93 percent for kids in group homes, according to the center.

Buerhle said ideal caregivers are people who live in the child's neighborhood, so that kids don't have to switch schools and leave all of their friends. But even a distant relative is preferable to someone who has no connection to the child.

"Our foster parents are wonderful people, but there is just something intrinsic in a child to know that the person taking care of them is family," Buerhle said.

For caregivers, especially older relatives such as grandparents, taking in an active toddler or mouthy teen can present challenges. Maldonado, the Allentown woman who adopted her two grandchildren, said she's a different type of parent this time around.

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"I had five children by the time I was 26. I was so young. With [Julian and Juliana], I am much more strict and picky and overprotective," she said.

Julian rolled his eyes at Maldonado's comment, then snuggled closer to her on the living room couch.

"It's a struggle, because this is a 24-7 job," Maldonado added. "I think God has a purpose for me, that is why he keeps me healthy."

The children still have some contact with Maldonado's daughter. They call Maldonado "Mommy" and her daughter "Little Mommy." Maldonado praised the caseworkers who have worked with the family, though she admits she had a different opinion of the agency when she was younger.

"I used to think of them as the bad guys, but they are great people," she said.

To promote kinship care and inter-family adoptions, state court officials recently created a video to help foster parents navigate the process. Sandy Moore, administrator of the Office of Children & Families in the Courts, said promoting kinship care will continue to be a priority for the courts.

"Focusing on both the physical and emotional well-being of children is critical, and safe kinship can help us accomplish both," Moore said.

Baer, the Supreme Court justice, agreed.

"Many of the children are traumatized when they come into the system, and our job is to make them better, not traumatize them more," he said.